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Lawrence Sigmond Bittaker, 79, was pronounced dead at San Quentin State Prison around 4 p.m. Friday, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Marin County coroner will determine the exact cause of death. Bittaker and his crime partner, 71-year-old Roy Lewis Norris – known together as the “Tool Box Killers” – kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed five teens over a five-month period in 1979. The two were convicted in the brutal deaths of Lucinda Lynn Schaefer, 16; Andrea Joy Hall, 18; Jacqueline Doris Gilliam, 15; Jacqueline Leah Lamp, 13; and Shirley Lynette Ledford, 16....

BOSTON - A Massachusetts teenager's confession to police that he killed his math teacher cannot be used in his murder trial, a judge ruled Tuesday even as he allowed a bloody box cutter and other key pieces of evidence to be admitted. The ruling came in the case of 16-year-old Philip Chism, who has pleaded not guilty to raping and killing 24-year-old Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer on school grounds in October 2013. Despite having been 14 at the time of the killing, Chism is charged as an adult.

High Court judge tells father to cut it out because it looks like he is shouting.A High Court judge in England told an “insensitive” father that he must stop emailing his children in all capital letters because it looks like he is yelling at them. The Israeli father is in a custody dispute involving his 13-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. During the dispute, the children have been moving back and forth between England and Israel. The judge ordered that the father’s old style of emails, which were "equivalent to him shouting,” needed to be improved upon with the help of...

Per FR policy, I can only link to this New Yorker article. FULL STORYCheck out the third paragraph.

"Homosexuality is one of the most disgusting sins and greatest crimes.... It is a vile perversion that goes against sound nature, and is one of the most corrupting and hideous sins.... The punishment for homosexuality is death. Both the active and passive participants are to be killed whether or not they have previously had sexual intercourse in the context of a legal marriage.... Some of the companions of the Prophet stated that [the perpetrator] is to be burned with fire. It has also been said that he should be stoned, or thrown from a high place." Saudi Textbook Jurisprudence (Fiqh)...

An 18-year-old man sat in jail Tuesday without bail after an 11-year-old girl walking home from a McDonald's in Davie freed herself from his grasp during a sexual attack, authorities said. Two of the girl's friends were walking nearby and held the suspect down until police arrived, said Davie Police spokesman Lt. Bill Bamford. Police said Rocael Espinoza Andres dragged the girl into an alley as she climbed through an opening in a fence behind a shopping center near the McDonald's in the 13200 block of State Road 84 on Sunday night and forced her into some bushes, police said....

TAMPA - A 2 ½ -year-old girl died Thursday afternoon, a day after being raped by her babysitter, authorities said. Eric James Tate, 18, of 14711 N. 30th St., Lutz, is accused of sexually assaulting the girl at about 11 a.m. Wednesday while babysitting at his home. Authorities searched Tate's mobile home and said they found the girl's panties soiled with blood on Tate's bed. Tate was dating the girl's mother, who brought the tot to St. Joseph's Hospital with severe head injuries Wednesday. Doctors put the girl on a ventilator. The identities of the girl and mother were not...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A man grabbed a Florida child and raped her in full daylight, police say. The man who St. Petersburg police said raped the 8-year-old girl remains on the loose. The victim was leaving a park at about 12:55 p.m. with her 7-year-old brother when the man grabbed her from behind, pulled her to the ground and raped her, police said. Their mother had left them alone for a few minutes to return home and turn off the kitchen stove. They were less than half a block from the family's apartment. A man playing basketball nearby said...

NEW PORT RICHEY -- A mother confronted a neighbor who allegedly raped her 7-year-old son and threatened to call police, but reportedly accepted $600 to let the man molest her son again, authorities said. The 30-year-old unemployed mother was charged Tuesday with capital sexual battery and child abuse. The neighbor, Nicholas Quiles, 48, has been charged with capital sexual battery. Both are being held without bail. It couldn't immediately be determined Thursday if they had lawyers.

On CNN and MSNBC TV News

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. (AP) - A man kidnapped two girls from their homes while their parents slept, took them to a construction site and raped them before sending them home, threatening to kill their families if they said anything, authorities said. Erick Thomas Knapp Jr., 31, confessed to investigators that he kidnapped, bound and raped the girls, ages 13 and 7, in separate incidents, sheriff's Capt. Michael Savage told the Charlotte Sun Herald for Sunday's editions. He said there may be more victims. "He went into occupied residences and snatched children while their parents were sleeping in the next room,"...

HAMMOND -- Police have arrested the last person named so far in warrants accusing them of being part of a cult which had sex with children and animals, but a dozen or more additional people could be involved, authorities say.

CHARLOTTE COUNTY (Florida) - A Port Charlotte man was arrested Friday and charged with kidnapping two young girls from their homes as their parents slept, then raping the girls before letting them go. Erick Thomas Knapp, 31, is accused of entering the home Wednesday night of a 13-year-old girl who lived near him. Knapp threatened to cut the girl's throat, led her to a nearby home under construction and sexually assaulted her, her father said. Knapp, a felon, is also accused of using similar methods to abduct and attack a 7-year-old girl only a few nights before.

The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's office has broken up what they call a "child sex abuse cult." Three members of a Ponchatoula church have been arrested for allegedly raping children, and in some cases, having sex with animals. Some of the kids are as young as two years old. The Tangipahoa Sheriff's office says the alleged abuse occurred two years ago. Sheriff Daniel Edwards says his office began investigating the Hosanna Church more than a month ago, after getting information from a mother of an alleged victim. The big break in the case came Monday when the church's minister turned himself...

DELAND -- A self-described Internet evangelist who has preached about everything from morality to spirituality on his family's Web site was arrested Wednesday and charged with raping a child younger than 12. Balfe Charles Michael Balfe, 60, was picked up at his job site at 84 Lumber in DeLand, DeLand Police Cmdr. Randel Henderson said. He is being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail without bail. Balfe, married and the father of three, is accused in three warrants of raping a child younger than 12, Henderson said. The remaining counts accuse him of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious molestation...

LAUDERDALE LAKES, FLORIDA- A 9-year-old boy has told detectives his mother videotaped an assault on him by an adult male, who has been arrested. Broward Sheriff's detectives are investigating allegations by a 9-year-old boy who said his mother videotaped him being raped, then sold the tape. Investigators are looking into allegations that the boy was raped at least five times between July and October 2004, according to BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright. She would not say when the detectives first heard about the alleged assaults. Detectives arrested Kevin Jerome Bynes, 27, of Lauderdale Lakes, Tuesday on five counts of sexual battery...

NOVATO, Calif. (AP) - A Kern County man who has spent more than 17 years on death row for killing his girlfriend and her 14-year-old son died Wednesday of complications from cancer, prison officials said. Hells Angel motorcyclist Robert Garceau was convicted for the 1984 stabbing deaths of girlfriend Maureen Bautista and her son, Telesforo Bautista, both of North Hollywood. According to trial testimony, Garceau buried the bodies in cement in the backyard of a fellow drug dealer's house in San Luis Obispo County and claimed that his drug-dealing friends, not him, killed the two. He killed them in Bakersfield,...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Maintaining his innocence, a convicted killer was executed Wednesday for a 1991 triple slaying in which one victims was a 10-year-old girl pregnant with his child. "I just want to say I am not sad or bitter with anybody," Edward Lagrone said in a brief final statement. "Like I've said from Day One, I didn't kill them. But I'm no better than the people that did." He concluded by saying: "Jesus is Lord. That's all I have to say." After the lethal injection, Lagrone, 46, sputtered and gasped before he was pronounced dead seven minutes later....